How can I have joined the dark side??? Please…be nice…no tagging of unflattering photos please.

2. Avoid making eye contact with the other people at the bus stop because you don’t want them to think you’re like one of the psychos they see on Law & Order.

3. Pose with your friends by the new Miss America advertisements, making you look like you’re a pageant winner.

Seriously, though…am pretty excited for the Jan. 24 airing of said pageant. I’ve done a little scouting (for the watch party I plan on hosting), and I’m thinking California looks pretty strong this year…

Easily, the best movie I’ve seen this year is Slumdog Millionaire. I saw it earlier this week, and it’s one of the most honest accounts of India I’ve seen in a while. It actually kind of made me miss the place.

I can’t wait to see how many awards it takes this winter.

Seriously. Go watch it.

Actually, nothing says pop culture since 1998 like Britney Spears. It’s actually really sad how many memories of my life have to do with this woman. A little sampling:
1. When I was stressfully studying for finals freshman year I took a break at 3 every day to watch TRL; by the end of the week I’d memorized the “Oops!…I Did It Again” dance as well as the *NSYNC “Bye Bye Bye.”
2. When I studied abroad the next year and discovered karaoke I won a $30 bar card my first go for my rendition of “Lucky.”
3. The next two years of school, I lived with some Britney-crazy girls. My first Halloween there, they somehow convinced me that we should all dress up like the “Baby One More Time” video. Then there was the fact that one of them owned Crossroads. Seriously one of the worst movies ever made. But one that we watched endlessly. Oh, and another had a poster of Brit in her closet as motivation to get kick-arse abs.
4. After that, Brit memories admittedly died off. Until I traveled again. Asians seriously love her.

Down in Atlanta, my sis and I had an 80s/90s flashback and went to the New Kids on the Block, er, NKOTB concert here. Yes. It was the first time I’d seen them in concert. Back in 3rd grade I was invited to see them…my mom wouldn’t let me go because she was afraid my sister would be too jealous. So, as my friends heard Joey beg, “Please don’t go girl…” I sat at home.

I thought it was only fitting, then, that my sister and I went together…so she wouldn’t be jealous.

And, yeah…I’m still a Joey fan. Even though he can’t quite hit those high notes any more.

a short video for a little flashback for you, too

When I came back, many of my friends in New York all of a sudden had these “Bucket Lists.” They were spurred by the Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson film that features two men dying of cancer who create a list of items they want to do before they kick the bucket.

Earlier this week, I took advantage of my fabulous NYPL card and finally borrowed the film (free rentals? recession be damned!). In the movie the characters spend a couple of months traveling around the world. It was pretty surreal watching it and seeing some very familiar places and realizing that the trip I just finished is actually a collection of “trips of a lifetime” for many. It made me think back to my 50 Life Goals list that I’ve had ever since I was 15. Granted, the list has had many incarnations in the past 12 years and has never even had 50 goals at any given time…but still…

I mean, I’ve always liked having things to work toward. I love looking at it a couple of times every year and marking things off. I love looking at it and thinking…”what the hell was I thinking?” And I love the fact that I can buy an indulgence during a so-called economic downturn and not feel guilty because I know I’ve wanted that for years.

But while watching the movie, I have to say, I think my “bucket list” is far different from my already created life goals list. I mean, the goals I have are all very forward-thinking. They’re things I want to accomplish, or things I want to have, or people I want to know because I think they’ll make me happier in the long run. A bucket list, on the other hand, seems to have things that are just experiences to have because they’re great experiences.

But what was even crazier was realizing that I’ve got plenty of travel goals on my list o’ life goals (which includes visiting Europe, making a trip to the Final Four, and visiting all 50 states, among others). But if I were to know when my life were to end or to create a bucket list, I don’t think travel would be anywhere on there. Travel, like my goal of learning to play the guitar, or my dream of owning a house with a gazebo, would seem pretty fruitless if life were ending in six months.

I guess I’m just saying it made me realize that I don’t really travel because I like traveling. I do it because I like the person that I think it makes me.*

(*not that I think learning to play the guitar or owning a house with a gazebo would make a better person, though…)

Friday night my friends and I were celebrating a birthday and got to witness one of the UN’s best ideas of the year. Some of its employees were out having a “Mustache Karaoke” night.

Seriously…good times.

For my parents, they usually find out through phone conversations or the bump-in at the grocery store. After the normal chit-chat, there usually comes a pause and something along the lines of, “Oh…did you hear about Billy’s boy?” Then, both parties would exchange thoughts on Billy’s son and why the death was so unbelievable (or expected, if that’s the case). On the rare occasions that there was no conversation about said death, my parents usually found out when they saw someone “up on the board” at the local funeral home. Then, they’d usually be calling someone to tell them about the name they just saw at White’s.

But then there’s my generation. Last year my roommate randomly decided to check up on a high school best friend via her myspace page, only to find she’d been killed days before in a car accident. Her friends had plastered comments immediately, grieving about how much they missed her, and that was how M. found out about her friend’s death.

And yesterday I opened up an e-mail to my j-school listserve announcing the death of a former resident of mine. Although I’d only spoken with him once or twice since my graduation, I couldn’t help but well up with tears as I read through his blog, chronicling his three-time diagnosis with cancer over the past four years. He was so young…so innocent (his freshman-year nickname was Sweetpea); I couldn’t believe such a genuinely sweet person had passed away in his mid-20s.

Thinking about how short life is and how much it rarely makes sense, the most frustrating part of it was that I had nobody to share that with. My parents could at least discuss it with the messenger. But with our generation…except for the most close of friends or family…that news comes not from a face-to-face conversation or phone call. But we learn our news from a computer.

And although it’s speedier and we learn things about far-off friends, well, sometimes you just want to see a face that scrunches up when delivering the news. Or to hear a sigh that says, “I know. Wow, huh?”

Anywho, when I recently saw an article that social networking searches have surpassed porn, I remembered I had a picture I hadn’t shown from the conventions yet.

It was a bit of a shocker to see McCain sporting a “Porn Is Bipartisan” cap and shirt since I didn’t know what the organization was all about. Luckily the back of this trading card er, collectible, assuages our fear that McCain is an Internet pedophile chat-room stalker (which I think would be pretty hard to do, if you don’t know how to use e-mail). It also tells us some little facts about those naked pictures you were looking at before you decided to come on over to ususbaby.com, such as:
-”Porn is overtaking the American youth and our govt. is doing nothing.”
-”87% of all teens are online.”
-”The U.S. produces the most porn in the world.”

My favorite is the clincher: “If you are pro the American family then you are pro Porn Is Bipartisan.”

OK. Just don’t EVER make me wear that hat. Do you know what kind of weirdos would hit on an Asian woman wearing that???